THE USUALLY empty streets of Waterford Rise were packed with visitors on Sunday night for an event designed to bring community groups and the community to the new estate.
Above: eating, walking, looking around: visitors explore the estate. All photos by William PJ Kulich. Video by Bec Vandyk.
More photos below.
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The Waterford Rise Block Party, which saw community groups and businesses occupy stalls and display homes around one block of the estate, was put together as a publicity exercise by the estate’s developers.
Organiser Sallie Jones told The Warragul Citizen the event had been received well, with a strong turnout of people from Warragul and Drouin.
“The reaction from everyone has been overwhelmingly positive,” Ms Jones said.
“Warragul hasn’t seen anything like this before, and to have a twilight event is great for our community, it’s brought everyone out of their homes in Warragul and Drouin and surrounds.”
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The estate is part of Warragul but is separated from older parts of town by a sizeable amount of former farm land which is yet to be built on.
Ms Jones said the event could be put on again.
“We did have a little chat to the Baw Baw Development [Group, co-backers of the estate,] and they’re already talking about the next event we could put on for them,” she said.
“We would think this would probably be an annual event, but we will soon find out once we have a bit of a debrief meeting.”
Groups involved were offered free stall space at the event.
“We’ll probably keep it free (for community groups) in the future.”
Local organisations were not the only ones represented at the event.
“We’ve kept it local where we can, but we’ve also tried to get on board as much international cuisine as possible,” Ms Jones said.
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“We’ve got an Afghan restaurant coming from Dandenong, we’ve got Japanese which is a local, local wine, local seafood, and topped off with great entertainers.
Above: Warragul Industrials Football Netball Club players and mascot take a ride on the “train” which ferried visitors around the block.
Aidan (above) and Alyssa (below) enjoy pony rides.
Above: Tyler and his Nan with a chicken and rabbit at the petting zoo.
Above: Cassie practices handballing at the Industrials’ stall.
Above: “I can’t see properly in this costume!”
Above: magician The Great Scott bribes his audience with $50 notes created from plain paper.
Above: multi-instrumentalist Alan Tatlow.
Above: Stepback Felix. From left: Lachie Yuill, Issac Ketchen, Chad Ketchen and Andrew Brown.
Above: artist Bec Vandyk created two large paintings at the event. You can find the second and a time lapse video of their creation later in this gallery.
Above: Alejandro the Mexican Music Man.
Above: stilt walker ‘Carmalina’ with her bubble gun.
Above: Melbourne skaters Sarah Landy (left) and Chantelle Fava (right).
Above: skater Sarah Landy flies through Carmalina’s legs.
Above: Bec Vandyk’s second image. Watch the time lapse video of her evening’s work below.
Above: Whisky Gypsies performing.
So basically the point of the exercise was for the promoter to drum up business and sell some blocks of land?
re Tyler & his Mum at the petting Zoo. actually its Tyler & his Nan, but thank you for the complement. We loved the photo, & thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon at the block party.